1967-1970

I think that is not easy to choose the best songs from The Beatles and to release them in two albums separated by periods marked by specific years. But this is what the record labels (EMI / Apple) did in 1973, and more with the aim to fight some bootleg compilations done by "pirate record labels" in the early seventies.

This is not really a collection of only Hit Singles, because despite having some of them ("All You Need is Love", "Hello, Goodbye", "Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude", etc.), many songs were selected from the albums and put together in this compilation, and I think that it was hard to do it, because, how do you take songs from an album like "Sgt. Pepper`s...", which is a continuous piece of music with the songs edited to sound like a collage of music, the way it was designed by The Beatles and Producer George Martin? Anyway, it is a very good compilation, in my opinion, and they selected very good songs from their albums. So, for the casual listeners or for the new generations of Rock listeners I think that it is a very good choice if they want to have a good and representative selection of their songs from their most interesting period, in my opinon, which was the period of the so- called "The Studio Years" (1967-1970), their most influential years as musicians and their most matured period as a band.

I remember reading in 1973 about some rumours about a "Beatles`Reunion". Lennon and McCartney were talking about it (separatedly) to the newspapers in interviews, while Harrison didn`t say nothing, and Starr couldn`t see it happen. The main reason to talk about a Reunion, I think, was that Lennon, Harrison and Starr didn`t renew their Management Contracts with Allen Klein, and in fact Klein sued them in the same year, and that legal fight was finally resolved in 1977. By the same time Lennon himself finally recognized that hiring Klein as their manager was a mistake and that in fact McCartney was right about his lack of confidence in Klein as manager. In the end, that "Beatles `Reunion" never happened, but I also see the release of both compilations (the 1962-1996" compilation and this) as a coincidence, maybe to give a "double message" to the Fans: "yes, maybe the Reunion can Happen, but maybe not. In the meantime, buy these compilations to remember their best songs".

In conclusion, this is a very good compilation, not only of their Hits, but all the songs are very good, in my opinion. If you want to only listen to the Hit Singles, buy the "The Beatles 1" CD instead.